fitting a used wood burner

[Mick Annick]

ive been and uttery confused myself again, currenty we have an open fire place that we dont use as it uses an incredible amount of wood to do not a lot,

putting a liner in the chimney dosent seem like to much hard work, but the sticking point for me is going to be the wood burner, its a big room and atm i'm feeling quite poor, what im wondering is where do i stand with fitting a used wood burner. ? looking for something in the 8-14 kw range, locally there are various i think sutable wood burners fow a few hundred quid rather than a few k

Talk to @julianthegypsy - he’s the man for small woodburners!

 

[gaz1]

ive been and uttery confused myself again, currenty we have an open fire place that we dont use as it uses an incredible amount of wood to do not a lot,

putting a liner in the chimney dosent seem like to much hard work, but the sticking point for me is going to be the wood burner, its a big room and atm i'm feeling quite poor, what im wondering is where do i stand with fitting a used wood burner. ? looking for something in the 8-14 kw range, locally there are various i think sutable wood burners fow a few hundred quid rather than a few k

pick your stove carefully most stoves still chug through alot of wood but less than an open fire

as goes for flue liner easy it isnt standing on the roof fitting 30-50ft flue liner while threading the needle isnt easy is also a 2 man job for easiness

whilst also being careful not to be grabbed by the wind or have the flue liner grabbed and blown about isnt fun

ive also noticed you state open fire with no pic is it a chimney breast open fire or are you opening it up fit the fire in

 

[Shox Dr]

pick your stove carefully most stoves still chug through alot of wood but less than an open fire

as goes for flue liner easy it isnt standing on the roof fitting 30-50ft flue liner while threading the needle isnt easy is also a 2 man job for easiness

whilst also being careful not to be grabbed by the wind or have the flue liner grabbed and blown about isnt fun

ive also noticed you state open fire with no pic is it a chimney breast open fire or are you opening it up fit the fire in

Had to line mine last yr. welded 4 1metre lenghts together and fed them down the chimney. It was interesting

 

[8ob]

The one in the rest/dossing room at the yard is just a six inch steel pipe sat on the top of the stove going straight through the roof. Must have been in nearly twenty years now, flue has never been cleaned and it burns everything and anything in the way of wood. Does make you wonder how they managed to make something so simple so complicated.

Bob

 

[Shox Dr]

The one in the rest/dossing room at the yard is just a six inch steel pipe sat on the top of the stove going straight through the roof. Must have been in nearly twenty years now, flue has never been cleaned and it burns everything and anything in the way of wood. Does make you wonder how they managed to make something so simple so complicated.

Bob

There’s no money in simple

 

[Bobtail4x4]

there are 3 houses locally and a pub (that I know of) have been on fire due to diy logburners

and I suppose plenty more I dont know about.

its the keeping the flue away from combustible material thats the problem,
one the other year had a logburner in a corner, the curtains would catch in the stove door................

 

[reb78]

We have a couple of log burners. Both Villagers. The one in the lounge is better described as a furnace. I can fit about 8+ large logs in there and let it burn all night. What I would like to do is put a back boiler on it and feed it into the central heating to dissipate the heat better.
The burner in the kitchen is smaller and more controllable... 2ish logs size in comparison to the lounge. I get that hot and it will burn 24 hours a day with a few feeds and that heat gets round the house due to more open airspaces. A solid fuel Rayburn will be going in there at some point and that will definitely be fed into the central heating.

 

[TechnicAl]

Ive got one in the shed. Bought off Facebook from a Pub that had closed in Ashbourne (just outside). I paid 30 quid but it needed new seals and fire bricks....I use wood and these ovoids from a local dealer, they are called NEWHEAT and theyre smokleless. I love them as they burn for ages and really hot...I often have to open the doors even on the coldest days....its well insulated as well

Went to light a fire the other day.....not lit a fire for months....opened the door and a dead baby squirrell inside....looked at the chimney and the cowl had virtually disappeared.......it was stuck to the grate so it got cremated

 

[armalites]

@dannyp if you can find a sensible price used Clearview it would be money well spent.

Don't go too big, you are better to run a small one harder than trying to choke a large one.

We have a Clearview Pioneer 400, absolutely amazing thing. Ours is in a 15x15 room and we can easily get it so it's unbearable, with a stove top fan we can feel the heat at the end of the kitchen which is 6m away. With decent wood if we put a good sized log on at around 2300 and shut it down to a low setting it will still have enough to open up and burn at 1500 the following day. Doesn't produce much ash either. Ours runs 24/7 and I probably empty the ash pan maybe once every 10 days. The glass only blackens if you have unseasoned wood but all you need to do is run with a full flame to clear it. We never use fire lighters, just kindling and newspaper and it roars up every time

One thing you have to be careful of with Clearviews is that some models have smoke free zone options, with those models you can't shut them down so they don't burn overnight. If you have good wood then they don't produce much smoke anyway.

We bought ours new from Clearview in Ludlow, sure it was £1200 but worth every penny. Second hand ones fetch £8-900 so resale value is great. I can understand the appeal of one that costs £300 but they aren't in the same league, you will be very hard pushed to find someone who has a Clearview that doesn't rave about it.

 

[Ton-up]

A cautionary tale. My Dad fitted a Tirolia solid fuel 'aga' type cooker/back boiler in the early 1980s. Its been running as basically the only source of heating ever since. (they do have gas but its only used on the hob in the summer). My Dad died 14 years ago and Mums been looking after it religiously ever since!
back in the early spring this year, I went round after work and Mum was out. I heard the smoke alarms going off, went round the back and saw smoke pouring out of the Vent Axia type extractor. Looked through the windows and it was like she had grey tinted windows, couldn't see a thing!
opened the back door couldt see at all and I went in with a towel over my face and opened every window in the kitchen. Although there was no smoke damage, the smell did not go for a couple of weeks.
She had shut the two doors into the rest of the house and I think that basically the stove had burned all the oxygen in the room and was drawing down the chimney.
That is the first time it had happened in more than 35 years, so make sure you have enough air vents in the room. One of my first jobs after was to knock a new vent in........

 

[armalites]

This has been running continuously for a couple of weeks and the glass has not been cleaned. This is the normal running state, not you usual black glass you see on other wood burners

 

[Wozzaaah]

I fitted a 2nd hand Charnwood Country 4 last year, we pulled the liner up the chimney rather than wrestle with a giant metal snake up on the roof. It went up easily.
Be careful about buying something too old in case it’s rotten.

 

[duncans]

This has been running continuously for a couple of weeks and the glass has not been cleaned. This is the normal running state, not you usual black glass you see on other wood burners

View attachment 256913

looks nice and cosey that fire does

 

[gaz1]

ive just been given a wood stove brother didnt want it as he had first choice

he wants a wood stove that burns less and gives loads of heat off whilst seeing the flames off of it

basically shopping basket size of wood to be used whilst not having a big store of wood at same time

 

[dobbslc]

This has been running continuously for a couple of weeks and the glass has not been cleaned. This is the normal running state, not you usual black glass you see on other wood burners

View attachment 256913

@armalites do you know what causes the black soot on the glass? We get it on ours around the edges and a bit in the centre that needs cleaning every few days.
Ours is a Burley Firecube I think.

 

[gaz1]

black soot on glass is caused by wood touching glass or not enough air

 

[dobbslc]

Here it is keeping us warm while the builders had the back of the house out in March last year!

 

[dobbslc]

black soot on glass is caused by wood touching glass or not enough air

Ok. Well there's never any wood touching the glass and the air is adjustable with a lever on the front, if it's kept near the max its burning really hot all the time. Some experimenting needed maybe?

 

[armalites]

@armalites do you know what causes the black soot on the glass? We get it on ours around the edges and a bit in the centre that needs cleaning every few days.
Ours is a Burley Firecube I think.

In my experience it's all about the wood, if we put a bit on that isn't dry enough the glass will go black. We've had Hunter,Villager,Esse stoves before and all of them ended up with blackened glass.

The Clearviews are double glazed and they have an air wash system which helps keep them clear. If we put a slightly damp log(sap not rain) and it's at a low temp the glass does get sooted up but 10-15 minutes of full flame and it's clear again. The amazing thing is when that happens the resin/tar on the glass looks like it's on there for good.

If you have it on full chat then shut it down you can watch the flames licking the glass, looks like the start of Tales of the Unexpected

 

[armalites]

black soot on glass is caused by wood touching glass or not enough air

That's certainly not the case with ours, ours is shut down very low before we go to bed and the only time it's sooted in the morning is unseasoned logs.